By Vir B. Lumicao
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| Martinez has been voting in Hong Kong since overseas election for Filipinos was introduced in 2004 |
Josefina Martinez sat patiently on a chair at the head of
the queue, as election supervisors replaced a ballot box that had reached its 1,000-ballot
limit in her precinct on the fifth floor of Bayanihan Centre.
She had limped her way up to the room on Day 9 of the
month-long election just to cast her vote, and waited patiently for about 20 more
minutes while a new ballot box was put in place.
Martinez,
74, told The SUN she had been coming to Bayanihan to vote since overseas voting
for Filipinos began in 2004.
“Manual kami noon.. kay Gloria pa iyon,” she said, harking
back to the election of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, when the
vote-counting machine was still on Comelec’s blueprint.
Asked why she did not ask to vote at the secretariat on the
third floor, where disabled or elderly voters could have their ballots brought
to them by an election inspector, she said, “Mahirap sa ibaba eh, baka palitan.”
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| Voting in Hong Kong for the last time |
With her bearing, she could be mistaken for a long-time Hong Kong resident, but she humbly replied, “katulad din
nila, ng marami rito” when asked if she were one.
Martinez
has served only one employer for the past 38 years. She still remembers that
when she arrived in Hong Kong in 1983, there
were only a small number of Filipino domestic workers around
According to her, the next dominant group after the Filipinos
were the Thais, but they eventually left because they preferred
entrepreneurship. They were replaced by Indonesians, she said.
“Di sila (Thai) pareho ng Indonesian, parang Pilipino rin na
happy na sa kaunting kita,” she said.
Soon after arriving here, Martinez became an active member and vice
president of Balikatan sa Kaunlaran Hong Kong Council, one of the first community
groups to organize livelihood training for Filipino migrant workers.
“Wala pang mga financial literacy noon, ang advocacy namin noon
ay livelihood at entrepreneurship,” Martinez
said. The idea, she said, was to help migrant workers set up a business so they
will have a source of income when they return home.
As a result of her entrepreneurship training, she said she and
her husband got into various business ventures, from taxi and fishing boat
operation, to raising fighting cocks for sale, and operating a sari-sari store.
Unfortunately she said not one of those businesses
worked.
“Lahat ng (aming) kinita, inilagay sa puhunan, (pero) parang
walang naipanalo eh, puro bagsak lahat ang mga negosyo namin. Siguro mismanaged,”
Martinez said.
But through hard work and diligence, the elderly woman was
able to send all of her three children through university. Now she’s helping
pay for her only grandchild’s schooling.
On this particular Easter Sunday, Martinez was accompanied
to Bayanihan by her daughter and grandson, but they had to wait on the ground
floor of the building while the elderly woman struggled to go up to her
designated precinct and exercise her right to vote.
Despite her obvious difficulty in moving around, Martinez says she still travels everyday by bus to her
employer’s house in Homantin, Kowloon.
“Kasi live out ako eh, kaya may bahay ako sa New Territories,”
she said.
Martinez,
who has been on live-out arrangement since 1987, was one of those who got to
retain this right despite an immigration policy passed in 2003 that banned the
practice.
She wants the live-out ban scrapped not just because many
helpers are forced to live with their employers in cramped Hong
Kong flats, but also because she wants them to be free from being
on call 24 hours a day.
“Kapag live-out ka, pagbaba mo sa bahay ng amo, sarili
mo na ang oras mo,” she said.
As a member of the militant United Filipinos in Hong Kong,
she has joined rallies calling on the Hong Kong
government to make living out optional. But she admitted that is a long shot.
“Hindi payag ang maraming employer dahil ayaw nilang
magbayad ng upa para sa katulong at ng pamasahe niya,” Martinez said.
She counts herself lucky that her local Chinese employers
have been good to her that they still sign her contract every two years despite
her age, and allow her to continue living on her own. But that will soon end, as she plans to go home for good in October
next year.
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